Okay, so this didn’t happen on Raw, but I’m spending the week at my parents’ house in Bristol, Virginia, and had to share it. If you follow me on Twitter you know about this already, but I ditched a minor league game in Bristol to catch NWA Smoky Mountain’s CAGE OF DEATH show, and it was the type of show you have to write about in CAPITAL LETTERS. It featured:

– Ricky Morton, who is still alive (and awesome)

– A two ring battle royal

– A black guy in full Hayabusa gear

– A homeless man dressed like Psicosis with velour shoulderpads (he was the champion)

– Post-match respect speeches with no microphone

– A fat guy pretending to be Heath Ledger’s Joker (this is at every show)

– Two intermissions, one of which was to fix a malfunction in the ring, which would’ve been fine if they did not have TWO RINGS

And to top it all off, the show was main-evented by the CAGE OF DEATH, a War Games match advertised as “one fifteen foot high steel cage, one barbed wire cage” that delivered roughly fourish sides of steel cage and two hastily put-together arrangements of lumber with maybe four strings of rubber barbed wire wrapped around them. It was amazing.

As you can see from the video, none of the cage walls touched and they had to have a Young Boy (or whoever) stand under each one and hold it up. Before the match, they told people in the front row to relocate if they “could not move quickly”, because the cage walls were just gonna fall on us. Nobody got thrown into the barbed wire cage walls (to avoid a lawsuit, I’m guessing) but the Joker guy did try to roll around in the wire for a minute. It didn’t even stick to his clothes. The War Games match ended with only two guys in the ring, doing the Cena/Umaga Royal Rumble finish.

So please understand that it is with the CAGE OF DEATH ringing in my head I tried to watch an episode of Raw at my parents’ house.

Worst: All Right All Right, I’ll Recap John Cena’s Nonstop Reiterations

That’s what’s bugging me the most about Cena right now, and what’s bugged me since the first few weeks of the formal Rock feud — Cena’s not really saying anything BAD (Star Wars promo notwithstanding), he’s just saying the same thing over and over.

With the Rock, he mentioned that the Rock was never there, he’s ALWAYS there and the Rock played the tooth fairy in a movie once. Then he mentioned it on repeat for weeks. Against Brock, he said he was gonna FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT, and he said it again the next week, and again the next. He did something similar with Show, and now that the feud with Show is over he’s moved on to explaining how he’s in the Money in the Bank ladder match to keep Show from winning. He mentioned it last week, he mentioned it again last night. He’ll probably mention it next week.

I know you’ve got to speak a little more slowly than natural and reiterate some stuff to drive it home to the WWE Universe, but damn dude, we get it. We understand your motivation. If Travis Bickle had spent the entirety of his movie saying “I’m socially awkward and feel like I need to save people who don’t want to be saved” he wouldn’t have been in Taxi Driver, he would’ve been in Garden State. Don’t be Garden State, John. Nobody should have to be Garden State.

Best: Chris Jericho And Daniel Bryan

One of the major highlights of last night’s show was the pretty-obvious-in-retrospect reveal that Chris Jericho and Daniel Bryan are great together, and should either be blood rivals or a regular tag team. It worked in the opening segment, when Jericho managed to obnoxiously point out that Bryan’s insecure about his catchphrase because it’s the only thing that’s ever gotten him over and he’s afraid he won’t have another because that is absolutely true, and it hit without making Bryan look less important. It made him look like they’re trying to make him look.

It worked again during the backstage YouTube Poop segment a little later, when Bryan took the first opportunity to start shouting “yes” and Jericho responded by just mindlessly screaming his own catchphrase. It’s not something that should work, but these guys are great at what makes pro wrestling great, so it does.

Give Bryan the belt at Money In The Bank, pair the new Macho Man with the new Elizabeth, do a double turn to get Punk closer to fine and feud Bryan with heel Jericho for the next six months. Everybody in the world is suddenly super happy.

Worst: The Most Important Person To Your WWE Career Isn’t Vince, It’s The Music Guy

You don’t need connections in The Business, an incredible amount of talent, indescribable charisma or impossible luck — you just need to be friends with the sound guy, because whoever’s music plays at the end of the segment is the winner.

That’s what Show did. He interrupted the Interruption Segment and a fight broke out, and when he knocked everybody down, Jeff (the sound guy, I’m assuming) hit the “WELL IT’S THE BIG SHOW” button and declared Show the victor. I mean sure, the other guys could’ve stood up and resumed fighting … they get knocked down like that in wrestling matches all the time, they’re just waiting for you to pull them up so they can start throwing back elbows or whatever. That’s how wrestling works, Jeff. You should until 1) official match entrances and 2) a bell ringing and a referee’s decision before playing somebody’s theme. Otherwise you’re just accompanying their walking, and that’s weird.

Worst: I Guess The Ryback Has Been Quarantined To Smackdown

Those stupid Goldberg chants are going to make me have to start recapping Smackdown, aren’t they.

First thing is first (I haven’t commented in a while) Damien Sandow AND Tyson Kidd in the Money In The Bank match. HELL. YES.

I always like having a guy who is underused but clearly fantastic to root for. It’s why I genuinely teared up when Bryan won MITB. It’s why the excitement I had of something coming from that win was far a different beast then the usual sort of excitement I have for anything else in the WWE. It’s like the difference between rooting for your favorite team, and rooting for the team you like more than the other one.

ANYWAYS. Now that Bryan is officially killing it and consistently in the main event picture, Tyson Kidd has become my new “underused guy to root for excessively.” And yeah, the whole bit on Raw tonight was pretty dumb, overall. But I just can’t even care. First Kidd looked great in that battle royale at whatever that PPV was, then he qualifies for MITB, and now he’s getting air time on Raw, getting SEEN. And yeah, the Kelly Kelly roll-up of doom sucked, but Kidd got a win on Raw, and that is huge to me. WWE is making an attempt to get this guy out there even just a little, and I could not be happier about it. If you watch NXT, you’ve seen that not only can Kidd have a great match, he can get over with a crowd who couldn’t have cared less when he first made his entrance, simply with his ring work. It’s fantastic to watch, and it gets me “favorite team” excited. Kidd isn’t going to win MITB, but he’s getting his face out there, and it’s just the best thing that ever bested. (That said if Kidd does win MITB I swear on my life I will fly to every one of your houses and get on my knees and blow you. Happily).

Rumham blowing all of the stroudmouths would definitely be the worst Bear-twink porn ever! (Glad I made the top 10, but a little concerned it was because of a gay porn reference, but hey whatever works, thanks for all the +1s perverts!)

Also, Brandon, your comment about WCW inviting DX into the arena and then having their roster shoot beating them would have been so epic it might have, quite possibly, gone down as the single greatest thing to ever happen in wrestling.

OH MAN WHAT WAS THE NAME OF THAT ANTI-DRUG CARTOON WITH “the combination of Garfield, Muppet Baby Kermit and Michaelangelo from the Ninja Turtles telling us to just say no.” I LOVED THAT CARTOON SOOO HARD!!!!!

Also, Brandon, as a guy who has a history of drinking and snorting anything he could find I promise you that resisting doing those things now is 10000000000% more difficult than it was before I ever did them. Yes, I made stupid choices and did the same stupid things my parents have done, but now that I’m trying to lead a clean life I can promise you that it takes more strength to say no now than before.

The problem with those commercials is that they’re populated by Tracy Flick-s and yeah, fuck that.

Smackdown occasionally has boring episodes, but most weeks it’s better than Raw for me. I just wish they’d just stop fucking around with the audio and air it as a live-to-tape show. Less Sheamus would be nice too, but that’s just a personal thing.

1) I can’t read “AWWW HERE IT GOES” without thinking of Kenan and Kel. I’m sorry.
2) At this point, there should be a regular ‘top ten comments of the week’ page, and then a ‘top ten Tobogganing Bear comments of the week’ because that guy is just the bees knees.
3) YES! Do a Smackdown B/W! There’d be way too many bests, but you’d enjoy it more!

Man, I almost went to that NWASM event in Kingsport. Usually put on a decent show. What did you think of Jason Kincaid (Or as I like to refer to him as, “The Ginger with a huge beard and looks like he wears Ugg’s in the ring”)?

Unrelated to anything: Angie is convinced Eve is pregnant. I’m not so sure.

AJ’s storyline finally got awesome last night. The turn from random plaything to girl who is clearly in charge and just making these guys dance when she says to rules. When she stopped skipping around the ring and pulled out the table, i was confused. But when she started climbing up on the turnbuckle, i sat up and paid attention. It was such an awesome ending, and i’m glad there’s finally a tolerable storyline for one of the girls on the roster, especially after Karma and the Divas of Destruction things fizzled out.

I was legit concerned that– since they know AJ can take a bump– that she was actually going to Sabu that table to get attention *and* cement her craziness. The ending we got was so much better, obviously.
And I’m sure we’ve all already said or thought this, but it bears repeating: It’s a great accomplishment for AJ that the most interesting and important storyline in wrestling right now revolves around a woman.

How funny and/or crazy is it that the best character on WWE TV right now is AJ? I dig it.
Also, every time I see DDP I can only think of DDP/Karl Malone vs Hogan/Rodman. I don’t think that’s a memory anyone wants to have.

I got his autograph after buying tickets to a Nitro when I was going through puberty. After he would sign an autograph he had everyone make the diamond cutter sign and yell “BANG!” When I did it, my voice squeeked, and he tried (unsuccessfully) not to laugh. It’s a funny memory now, but I was crushed back then

I swear that “above the influence” dude who does the “half as strong” schtick is one of the creepiest people I’ve seen. He’s got the hairstyle of a teenager, but looks, acts and sounds like an evangelical preacher (or bible study instructor) in his mid-to-late 30s. Fucking hate that shit.

You know that bit in the first of Twin Peaks’ black lodge dream sequences, when grey-haired Cooper is sitting across from Laura Palmer in the red room, and off in the corner, with his back to the room, the little “Man From Another Place” guy is shaking and shuffling in this intense violent way and it’s so fucking horrifying and nightmarish because WHAT IS HE DOING?! OH GOD?

I made the top 10! YES! YES! YES! I better be on there every week from now on, or I will climb the turnbuckle and jump through a table. Seriously guys, I’ll fucking do it!

In all seriousness, thanks for the top 10! And thanks for this wonderful place where we can all gather together to discuss wrestling. The open discussion threads and B/W are 2 big highlights for me every week.

“All we need is for her storyline with the boys to be over at Money In The Bank, no matter what happens, and an equally fully-realized female babyface to show up, siphon her cheers and give us our first chance to really care the way we should about women wrestling in the big leagues in years and years.”

OR a full fledged female heel (who I actually care about. With respect to the totally ineffective Beth Phoenix) that can go after Layla and her championship and they can have their awesome match that lasts longer than 2 minutes! (They had something last week on Smackdown…until Bryan showed up.) Then I will care for the divas once more instead of just drooling over Layla or taking a piss break.

Agreed. They seem to be actually making some effort to make people appreciate and care about Layla. I was worried they were just building her up for Kharma (who at this point I don’t care about anymore, b/c the Diva’s division is so worthless); so it’d be great if we eventually got a Layla/AJ feud.
…That being said, I still want AJ to be involved with the guys’ storylines for as long as possible. Because we know once she’s back to dealing exclusively with other Divas, that Creative has lost interest in her.

You forgot to give a best for the look on Chris Jericho’s face when John Cena’s music hit during the main event. With Teddy Long as GM for the night he looked surprised that the match announced at the begining of the night actually had the same participants by the end of the night.

Great stuff Brandon. I know it’s not perfect, but I’m pretty happy with the product we’re getting these days. Guys like Prime Time Players are making tag matches fun again, and Dolph Ziggler just keeps getting better. That dude makes any match a must see.